1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus such as an organic EL display apparatus, and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been proposed an image display apparatus using a current-controlling organic electroluminescence (EL) element having a function of generating light by recombining positive holes and electrons implanted into a light emitting layer.
In this type of image display apparatus, thin-film transistors (hereinafter, “TFT”) including amorphous silicon and polycrystalline silicon and organic light emitting diode hereinafter “OLED”), as one of organic EL elements constitute each pixel. Brightness of each pixel is controlled by setting a proper current to each pixel.
In an active-matrix image display apparatus having plural pixels with current-drive type light emitting elements such as OLEDs and driving transistors such as TFTs laid out in series, a current value flowing through the light emitting elements changes due to a variation of threshold voltages of driving transistors provided in the pixels, and brightness variation occurs. As methods of improving this phenomenon, there are a system of detecting in advance a threshold voltage of a driving transistor and controlling a current flowing through light emitting elements based on the detected threshold voltage as disclosed in one document (for example, R. M. A. Dawson et al. (1998) “Design of an Improved Pixel for a Polysilicon Active-Matrix Organic LED Display” SID 98 Digest, pp. 11-14.), and a detailed circuit configuration based on this system as disclosed in another document (for example, S. Ono et al. (2003) “Pixel Circuit for a-Si AM-OLED” Proceedings of IDW '03, pp. 255-258).